Cara+Activity

=CATEGORIES= Cara Silverman

Purpose
There are several purposes this game serves, the first of which is to help the instructor gain insight to the different levels of understanding the learners have of the topic. It also serves as an ice breaker, getting everyone in the group involved and conversing with one another, and allows students to share their ideas with one another, which will hopefully give everyone a bit of knowledge they didn't have before.

Time Required
10 minutes - 45 minutes

Number of Participants
minimum: 4 maximum: 20 optimal number: 8

Supplies Needed
Players need only a pencil and paper, as well as one time-keeping device.

Preparation
The only thing the facilitator should prepare ahead of time (but it's not 100% necessary for the success of the game) is a list of possible categories which coincide with the overall topic being addressed.

Introduction
Okay guys we are going to play a little game now to get some of those brain juices flowing and get everyone thinking about the topic. Have any of you guys ever played scategories? Well this game is a little bit like that, where everyone is listing examples of a given category, except in this game you guys will list as many as you can in the given time frame and they can start with any letter. I'm hoping it'll give you guys a chance to recall some of your prior learning and help me to get an idea of where everyone is in the class, what area's you guys seem to know pretty well versus areas I might want to spend some more time on.

Process
One player is selected as the first prime player and they will determine the category for that round. Let's say the course is in Instructional Design, possible categories might include teaching methods, deliverable media types, or learning theories. Once the category is announced players have thirty seconds to write down as many examples as they can come up with of the category. Once the time is up, everyone will put down their pencils and tally up their responses. One point is given for every example, and three points for every example not mentioned by anyone else. Once everyone has had a turn determining the category (and perhaps two turns depending on the number of participants), the player with the most points wins. Each round should take approximately 3-5 minutes.

Debrief
What topics did you guys find the most challenging to come up with examples of and why? How about the easiest? Do you think this was a good way to stimulate you guys to recall prior learning without reteaching it? Did other people examples help you remember some of what you may have forgotten? Did you learn new examples?

Credits
This game was inspired by one I saw on the www.thiagi.com website called paper and pencil, where each player wrote down one example of the category and then everyone voted on who's example most clearly represented the category. I use that idea and took elements from one of my favorite games, scategories, to come up with a new simple, low-tech, interactive learning game.